Empire's Godly Role
Index 
Law
"After Constantine had turned the Eagle counter to heavens course, the course it took behind the ancient one who wed Lavinia, (Aeneas) One hundred and one hundred years and more the bird of God remained near Europe's borders." The Divine Comedy, Paradiso Canto VI:1-5 This quote is the opening of a speech to Dante by Justinian, the Byzantine Roman Emperor, an apparition in the second level of Paradise. Justinian was known for compiling Roman law into what became known as the Corpus Juris Civilis or Justinian Code. Dante believed that the best government was a strong Empire led by a good emperor dedicated to enforcing just human law, as Justinian had done. Aeneas, the Trojan who escaped the sack of Troy by Agamemnon of course, founded Rome after marrying Lavinia of Alba Longa, a village near Rome. Dante so strongly believed that a strong empire was God's right hand on earth to control human interactions, he assigned Brutus and Cassius (along with Judas) to depths of Hell below the lowest depth, and put them head first directly in Satan's chewing mouth. They were there because they killed Julius Caesar, the founder of the Roman Empire according to Dante. Is democracy so much better? Or is it perhaps culpable of the sin Dante held so vile, the conflation of God's role (represented by the Church) and Caesar's role (represented by government). The Eagle in the quote is the symbol of the Roman Empire, and, I might note, of the American Empire as well. So perhaps American democracy is instead the Eagle set free. The first line of the quote above refers to the belief Dante had (perhaps incorrect) that Emperor Constantine, though converting the Empire to Christianity, erred greatly when he gave the Pope in Rome temporal powers of property and inheritance, conflating spirit and body. Supposedly Constantine did this when in 324 AD he, Constantine, move the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople, the site of ancient Byzantium. This was a most strategic area on the Sea of Marmara at the end of the Bosporus between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea; i.e. the center of the sea going world. Governance of Rome was left to the bishop of Rome, the Pope; and this was the sin, according to Dante, that plagued the world from then to Dante's time nearly 1000 years later. Several Popes who exercised temporal, civil power, such as leading armies, were placed deep in Hell by Dante, while Emperors who toiled for civil law were placed in Heaven, such as Justinian, the speaker of the quote. Dante lovedbenevolent (submissive to Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit) authority in a single person. |